19
year old Olivia Locher sent me images from her new series Shrines. Shrines
is a collection of brooding mystery, turned backs and séance-like
atmosphere. - Keba Robinson
Keba: When is
your birthday?
Olivia Locher: December
20, 1990
K: How did you get into photography?
OL: I
made snapshots throughout high school of my friends and things I found
interesting. I got serious with my craft late in 2007 whenI received a Fed Ex
delivery containing a Nikkormat ft2 and several lenses, sent from a stranger
who was a follower of my blog-life. I have been taking photographs since.
K: Have you
always been into creativity?
OL: My
older brother Brandon is a very eccentric individual, performer, and
artist. I have always been surrounded by creativity but I just started
exploring it on my own a few years ago.
OL: Designing wardrobe for my
future projects, and also making films
K: I watched one of your videos on
Vimeo....the one with the eggs and the people licking the red stuff off of the
chicks face....pretty crazy haha, what inspired the imagery? and do you
think you'll ever do music videos? or make movies?
OL: That particular video was something my roommate, Vanessa,
and I did for one of our class assignments. It was a photography class and
neither of us made a film prior to it so it was interesting. I actually
sort of forgot about it; it's funny you brought it up! The imagery was ideas of
things I wanted to photograph but instead Vanessa and I filmed them. It was
also based off of a performance piece the My Idea of
Fun Artist Collective from Johnstown [PA] put on celebrating Emmett and
Mary's S/T album. I would like to experiment with film a lot more in the future
and work on larger projects.
K: Do you have a favorite
photographer...or artist?
OL: Ryan
McGinley
K: Film or digital?
OL: Right now I
am shooting all film.
K: What was the idea behind your series 'Shrines'?
OL: Shrines is a collection of work inspired by dreams I've had
and images bouncing around in my head during the day. For the past year
my sleep schedule has been really out of whack and my dreams are outstanding,
they consist of mostly just imagery and have a lot of repeated symbols. I feel
like a crazy women waking up, jotting down notes and drawing sketches as
fast as I can trying to remember what was inside my head. That's exactly how
Shrines came about. The work is some of the most personal work I have
ever made.
K: How did you get those streaks of rainbow in your
series 'Dream Journal'?
OL: My
secret self made lens.
K: Do you go into photo
shoots with specific shots in mind, or do you just let the situations
unravel spontaneously? or both?
OL: I heavily style, direct, and have a
general idea of what I want to accomplish on my photo shoots because most of
the time my subjects are only acquaintances of mine and they often come into
the situation a bit nervous. A lot of the people I work with have never been
photographed in this way so giving them direction helps to break their self
consciousness and allows for them to naturally fall into the poses I'm searching
for.
K: I was looking through your pictures on your web site...and I noticed that
there's a pretty definite contrast between the work you have done this year
compared to your work from 08-09...2010 seems to have a lot more dreamy,
mysterious imagery...is there a reason for that?
OL: I
think both I and my work have matured.
K: If you could photograph anyone, who would it be?
OL: There
is no certain person, although I’d like to try working with a few professional
models.
K: I
like your flower tattoo, and the ink tattoo
too....any other tattoos that you were thinking of getting?
OL: I started getting tattoos very young. I got my first
one when I turned 14, a friend of mine owned a shop and I begged my mother to
let me get one. Currently I have three large tattoos and my dad still does not
know about some of them hahaha. For right now I think I'm done getting them but
in the future who knows!
K: What's your favorite thing to do in
NYC?
OL: I like leaving my apartment and
exploring…. going on adventures.
K: What's your favorite thing about your hometown, Johnstown, PA? OL: The
woods! I practically grew up in the woods constantly discovering, it's where I
shot all of Shrines and part of Dream Journal. I get extremely homesick when
I'm in New York.
K: What's the last show you went to, and
how was it?
OL: The last show I attended was an opening
reception for my series Clotheslines at the Visual Arts Gallery in Manhattan. The show is running until August 14th.
K: What are you listening to these days?
OL: Belle and Sebastian, Tom Waits,
Paul Simon, The Pixies, David
Byrne, Arthur Russell, Scott Walker, and Joni
Mitchell.
K: Are you working on any interesting projects at the moment?
OL: I
have been concentrated on finishing, Shrines, and Dream Journal. I am also
putting together a book of snapshots and will be starting a new project in NYC within the next week or two.
